SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 10 of “Severance,” streaming now on Apple TV+.
Mark Scout is at a mind-bending crossroads in the scorching Season 2 finale of “Severance.”
He has gone to hell and back to save his wife, Gemma, from the bowels of Lumon’s Testing Floor, and, with the help of his innie, he manages to get her out of the building alive. After two years of grieving someone who was never really gone, Mark can finally reunite with the love of his life in the outside world.
Well, not exactly, because the version of himself he created to cope with her death has other plans.
After a catastrophic conversation facilitated by camcorder at the severed birthing retreat, Innie Mark has a come-to-Kier moment and, for the first time in “Severance,” prioritizes his own existence over his outie’s. He may have helped save Gemma, but once he steps outside the office, his outie will never return, meaning he will cease to exist.
So, Innie Mark chooses life, leaving Gemma on the outside and grabbing Helly’s hand to run through the demented hallways of Lumon. As director and executive producer Ben Stiller calls it, “Young love running into the pit of hell.”
“There was a brief moment where we thought, maybe we do another cliffhanger where Mark is between Helly and Gemma,” Stiller tells Variety. “But, pretty soon after, we realized we can’t do that again — people will kill us. So, we wanted him to make the choice and set up a dystopian conflict.”
Stiller and “Severance” creator Dan Erickson broke down the Season 2 finale with Variety in separate interviews, answering all the burning questions our time would allow. Surely top of many viewers’ minds is how long we’ll have to wait for Season 3, which was officially confirmed by Apple TV+ Friday morning.
But when asked whether there are steps being taken to make sure the next season of the sci-fi hit will arrive sooner than the last (three years passed between Seasons 1 and 2), Erickson says, “There are.”
“We’re hoping that there are no massive strikes or pandemics or fissures opening up in the crest of the Earth that end up delaying us. Barring that, I’d certainly hope that we’d get this one out a bit sooner,” he adds. “But, ‘Severance’ has always been a show that takes a long time to make, and we’re proud of what we came up with, even though it took quite a long time.
In this episode, Innie Mark and Outie Mark have a conversation with each other, through a camcorder. It seems like the first time that Mark is split into two irreconcilably different people with different objectives.
Ben Stiller: We’re starting to see that these two different entities have very different agendas. They’re communicating for the first time. Outie Mark makes a clear case for what he wants, which is to see his wife again, and Innie Mark makes a strong case for what he wants. That conflict will create a lot of story and tension moving forward, because both of these characters have a very compelling case to make for themselves.
Outie Mark speaks sort of condescendingly to Innie Mark and seems not to fully recognize his personhood. Is there a world in which Outie Mark could have communicated better to get Innie Mark on his side?
Stiller: Yeah, I mean I do understand where Outie Mark is coming from, but he’s underestimating who Innie Mark is. He tries to manipulate him a bit, and Innie Mark is maturing and is very aware of what’s happening. Innie Mark has a good point, which is: If we do this, I’m probably going to stop existing, and all of my friends are not going to be alive. Outie Mark’s motivation is very pure — he wants to be with Gemma — but he’s missing the fact that he’s created this other part of himself that he doesn’t want to accept. I don’t think Outie Mark understands that this is part of him, this is who he is. He wants to deny that. It’s obviously a weird, complicated situation that is theoretical, but I do feel like both of these parts of him represent parts that we have in ourselves.
Mark’s reintegration seemed like a big step for the show in Episode 3, but by the end of the season, it hasn’t fully coalesced. Will that merging of innie and outie happen? Is it reversible? Outie Mark tells Innie Mark he will finish the process, but what does that actually mean?
Dan Erickson: I can’t speak to what is going to happen moving ahead with it, but, to me, Mark’s choice to reintegrate represents a willingness to destroy himself, because he is so desperate to get his wife back. First of all, there’s the question of whether reintegration is survivable, because, so far, the survival rate of it is zero on the show. [Petey Kilmer, the first reintegration patient, died in Season 1.] And then secondly, there’s this question of to what degree you will still be yourself by the time it’s done. With that in mind, it’s very fitting that the person who stops Mark, who says, “No, I’m not willing to let you go through with this,” is Devon, who has been the most protective character of Mark from the beginning of the show. So, I think that when he stops, it is because she has reminded him, “Yes, we’re going to do this. We are going to get your wife out, but you’re not allowed to destroy yourself in the process.” And so that’s why he sort of pauses. But, at the end of the season, he doesn’t know the degree to which it’s going to stick. Is this something that will fade once they have stopped doing the procedure, or will he continue to see these flashes from his other life? That’s a question that we have going forward.
Stiller: From my point of view, Outie Mark hasn’t really thought that out. He’s saying anything he can. In theory, it’s like, “Yeah, we’ll get reintegrated and then it’ll all be great.” But what I get from the scene is Outie Mark is trying to convince Innie Mark in any way that he can. I don’t know if he’s necessarily going to follow through with that because he doesn’t know if it’ll work or how safe it is.
When did you realize that the ending of the season would be Innie Mark choosing to stay inside Lumon with Helly rather than follow Gemma outside?
Stiller: That was always a very clear endpoint for this season. It always felt to me, even from the first season, that this is the track the story was going to go down. That the emotional connection that Mark and Helly develop in Season 1 is going to become a very real thing, and it’s directly at odds with Mark and Gemma’s relationship on the outside. It makes total sense — Innie Mark is living his own life.
The way things are left, it would seem that if either Mark or Helly’s innies were to leave the office, their outies would, logically, never go back inside. What does that mean for the show going forward?
Erickson: It speaks to where their heads are at in that final moment. I don’t think they have a plan, necessarily, for what they’re running toward. They know what they’re running from, which is nonexistence, because they’ve both come to the conclusion that you said. They’re making a choice that they want a life, whether that is five more minutes or five more years. Whatever it is, they want to continue to exist. If they want to continue to have a life together, they’re going to have to find a way to stay on that floor.
Forgive me if this is an oversimplified question, but is the audience’s loyalty supposed to lie more with Outie Mark or Innie Mark?
Stiller: That’s what I love — you don’t know. You don’t know how you’re supposed to feel. Our hope, with having such a deep history in Episode 7, is that there’s so much invested in the Mark and Gemma relationship too, even though we haven’t seen as much of it. Hopefully, part of the audience is rooting for Innie Mark and part of the audience is going to be like, “Oh my God, Gemma! Mark could just go through that door!”
What are Ms. Cobel’s motives, and why should Mark and Devon have any reason to trust her?
Erickson: They feel they have no choice, at this point. Devon realized that Mark was on a path to self-destruction in what he was doing with Asal [Reghabi, the reintegration surgeon]. Self-destruction is a theme with Mark. Severance is a partial self-destruction — you’re giving up so much of your life. And this takes it to the next level. So, from their perspective, this is the only choice. Cobel seems to be wearing masks upon masks, and the question is always, who is she really? Devon has been intensely deceived by Cobel [in Season 1, she presented as the doula Ms. Selvig], but she’s also seen something in her that she trusts. In Season 1, there are moments of vulnerability between them. Devon is making a calculated decision in saying, “I think there’s something real there. I don’t believe the version of her I was seeing was totally a facade. I think there is something in her that cares for you and me.” With no better choice, they go on faith.
With Drummond dead, Cobel switching alliances and Milchick shown in a more empathetic light, what does that mean for the antagonists of the show going forward?
Stiller: Hopefully, in our show, you don’t quite know where the antagonists are coming from or where their allegiance is — and who’s necessarily an antagonist. That was my hope this season with Cobel. You see more to her, but her motivations are always unclear in terms of what she ultimately wants. It’s the same with Milchick. These are people who are in something very close to a cult, which has such a strong pull on them. Even if they’re not technically severed, they’re still cut off from a part of themselves due to their allegiance to Kier and the ideology of Lumon. I hope when you see that last moment with Milchick too, you don’t know what he’s going to do or in which direction he’s going to go.
What exactly are the stakes with Gemma and the Cold Harbor test? If Mark hadn’t rescued her, would Lumon have literally killed her?
Stiller: I think we don’t know what would have happened there. It’s pretty clear how Lumon feels about Mark at that point, that Drummond is willing to strangle him. What their plan is for Gemma after this test is unknown, but it was obviously an incredibly important moment for them. The chip that’s in her head that is allowing her to sever into many different personalities — this was an important part of that test.
Do the sacrificial goats imply that what Lumon is doing to Gemma has been done many times before? Or is the Gemma project the first of its kind for Lumon?
Erickson: We can confirm that this is something they do. It’s a ritualized thing, this slaughter room, and it’s probably been used before. Lorne [the head mammalian played by Gwendoline Christie] even says to Drummond, “How many more must I give?” Whether that means that the goats have been used for this exact purpose or some other purpose is an open question, but it’s fair to say that some warm mammalian blood has been spilt down there before, be it human or goat.
One of my colleagues interviewed your production designer, Jeremy Hindle, who said the show uses the color red sparingly, “whenever there’s a bit of real love.” This episode ends with red alarms flashing throughout the halls and red blood all over Mark’s shirt. And it, quite strikingly, fades to red, rather than black.
Stiller: It’s something we haven’t seen before. The colors have been pretty specific in the show. It’s an indication that we’re going to another place now. With red, you think of heart, and love. Things are changing. It’s a different tone.
Will we get closure on why Irving has presumably been down to the Exports Hall? Or is that storyline considered resolved?
Erickson: It’s something that we considered and discussed explaining more fully this season, and we ultimately made the choice not to. I can’t speak to what’s ahead.
Lumon’s overall mission as a company — to “eliminate pain” — is explained more at the end of this season. Is that an inherently dystopian goal, or is it just their methods that are dystopian?
Stiller: I don’t think the desire to eliminate pain is dystopian or necessarily wrong, because who wants to be in pain? But when you break that down and start to think about what it means for the human experience, there’s the deeper question of: How can you have pleasure without pain? How can you have your history and memories if you’re cutting out the painful parts? So, I don’t have the desire to not have pain. As for Lumon, it’s another question that relates to corporate culture. You have Kier, who founded the company, and then all these different CEOs who put their own agenda onto what the company is. That’s an interesting question too — the difference between the core idea of a company and what it evolves into.
If the central question of Season 2 is, “Will Mark be able to find and save Gemma?,” what is the central question that you’re setting up with the finale?
Erickson: I can’t speak to what we’re going to explore in Season 3, but that moment where Mark turns away from Gemma is very much an answer to the first scene of the season, when he comes out of the elevator and instinctively runs to go find her. I thought it would be interesting if the challenge for this season was to take him from that place — where, without even thinking, he runs to find her because he feels that’s his responsibility — to a place where he prioritizes his own existence and his own relationship. In that moment, he believes he’s done the right thing by getting Gemma out. But that doesn’t mean that he himself has to choose nonexistence. So, there’s a question of, “How do you survive one more minute? What would you give up to stay alive for one more minute?”
Are there steps being taken to make sure that the next season doesn’t take as long as Season 2?
Erickson: There are. We’re hoping that there are no massive strikes or pandemics or fissures opening up in the crest of the Earth that end up delaying us. Barring that, I’d certainly hope that we’d get this one out a bit sooner. But “Severance” has always been a show that takes a long time to make, and we’re proud of what we came up with, even though it took quite a long time.
Do you have a favorite line of dialogue in the show?
Stiller: I really enjoyed the back-and-forth between Milchick and the Kier statue in their comedy routine that Dan wrote. My favorite line in the whole series is in Season 1, when Petey is in the basement and he sees Mark in a flashback asking, “What’s that, Sudoku?” That always makes me laugh when I hear Adam say that.
Erickson: The first time Dylan ever yelled, “Fuck you, Mr. Milchick!” was so wonderful to me. It’s a line of extreme defiance, and yet he’s still so in the system that he can’t lose the “Mr.” He still has to use the title. There’s a modicum of respect, even in telling him to fuck himself.
These interviews have been edited and condensed.
